ANT2100 Final Exam Study Guide Introduction Anthropology The study of human beings Subfields o Archeological Study of past societies and their cultural patterns processes through analysis of their material remains tools food remains and cities o Cultural Study of cultures and societies of human beings and their very recent past o Linguistic Study of language how it s structured and its social cultural contexts across space and time Sociolinguistics Investigates relationships between social and linguistic variation o Physical Biological Study of human evolution and variation biologically both in the past and currently Focuses on interaction between culture and biology Human genetics growth and development evolution Ethnography Fieldwork in a particular culture providing an account of that community society or culture o Uses data that is collected in the field o Descriptive o Refers to a specific group or community Ethnology Comparative cross cultural study of ethnographic data society and culture o Uses data that is collected by researchers o Synthetic o Used to compare and study a group of different cultures Theory A set of ideas formulated based on reasoning and facts to explain something o Used to promote new understanding Association An observed relationship between two or more measured variables Anthropology is o Holistic Considers all aspects of a culture its economic system religion kinship politics history and biology making everything interrelated It considers the whole rather than only parts Chapter 1 History of Archaeology Speculative Phase o 14th 17th Century Europe Mass looting of sites These people called themselves Natural Historians o William Stukeley First to perform systematic studies of monuments Excavating o 18th Century researchers began digging around major sites Goal was to loot treasure for personal collections o First Scientific Excavation performed by Thomas Jefferson through a Native American burial mound Concluded by deductive reasoning that the mounds had been used repeatedly over many generations by Native Americans to bury their dead o Mid 19th century Archaeology is established as a field Uniformitarianism Processes acting and shaping the world today were in operation in the past the earth has great antiquity On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin challenged scientific thought by claiming o Species were not created in their present form but evolved from ancestral species Species are Mutable not fixed o Proposed mechanism for evolution Natural selection o Traits are inherited and passed to the next generation o There is biological variation within all species Three Age System o Stone Age o Bronze Age o Iron Age Unilinear Evolution o Savagery Pre Agricultural o Barbarism Pottery and Agriculture o Civilization Writing 1822 Jean Francois Champollion deciphered the Rosetta stone making it possible to decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphics Blueprint Strategy o Reconnaissance o Rank sites chronologically o Organize into sequences o Stratigraphic excavation careful removal and analysis of each different layer of soil environment environments o More detailed regional survey and dating Cultural Ecology Cultural change due to adapting to change in the o Associate geographical distributions of site over time against changing o Examines differences in floral and faunal remains to reconstruct prehistoric environments Radiocarbon Dating The ability to efficiently date sites and materials across the world back to when they were created Objectivity Lewis Binford The idea that a conclusion should be based on an explicit framework of logical argument DATA o Goal was to explain objectively logically not simply describe artifact Traditionalist Approach Used to explain general ideas and try to answer big typology or classification questions like Why are we here o Descriptive o Historical Explanation o Inductive o Based on Authority o Data Accumulation o Qualitative o Pessimistic o Explanatory Cultural Processes o Deductive o Testing o Project Design o Quantitative o Optimistic Processual Approach Used to study specific groups and cultures and accumulate data hard facts in order to answer specific questions about them Women in Archeology Harriet Boyd Hawes discovered the Bronze Age site of Gournia by riding around Crete for several seasons Chapter 2 Evidence We Study Artifact Objects used modified or made by people not the same as a tool Ecofact Organic and environmental remains Seeds skeletal remains soils Features More permanent artifacts non portable such as hearths postholes pollen poop floors Sites Locations where artifacts features ecofacts structures and organic and environmental remains are found o Places with evidence of human activity Tell A site humans have occupied over long periods of time Example ROME Provenience Horizontal and vertical positions in the matrix gravel sand clay Human Ancestors Stone tools found in a closed matrix with extinct animal Taphonomy Study of site formation processes o Cultural Formation Deliberate or accidental activity of human beings o Natural Formation Natural processes that effect the burial and survival of archaeological remains flood volcano earthquake Natural processes can also destroy the primary context Flint Knapping Creation of stone tools to study their practical use in past civilizations bone Cuts o Hunting Cuts on the meaty bones of an animal o Scavenging Cuts on other bones of the animal like the ribs or head 4 Main Activities of Original Human Behavior o Acquisition of raw material o Manufacture o Use and distribution o Disposal or disposal when the tool is no longer workable Burials o Artifacts are placed in burials intentionally o Artifacts can tell us what others thought about the person buried o Hoards can be a great source of archaeological remains Individuals bury valuables with the intention of coming back to dig them up o Premise People who are treated differently in life will be treated differently in death A person s grave represents that person s status Natural Formation Processes o Inorganic Material Stone tools fired clay gold silver and lead are among the best able to survive long periods of time o Organic Material Preservation of organic material is determined largely by the matrix surrounding area and climate Climate o Tropical Temperate Climates Bad for preservation Heavy rain warm temperatures high humidity and insect life all promote decomposition o Dry Climates Good